Background

Conflict, intrigue, and mystery blend as comfortably into Grenada’s landscape as her generous mountains, waterfalls, and beaches. A small Caribbean island a hundred miles north of the South American continent, Grenada was already inhabited by warring Amerindian tribes centuries before Columbus sighted it in 1498.

The virgin sands of what is now known as Grand Anse Beach had welcomed their first human footprints around the time of Christ when the Arawak people fleeing tribal warfare in the Amazons had rowed their canoes into the bay. They enjoyed a thousand years of peace on the lush island before their aggressive cousins, the Carib Indians, invaded and dominated Grenada for another five hundred years.The Caribs killed the Arawak men and seized their women as wives and slaves.

The Caribs hunting in the hills must have been in awe at the ships that carried Columbus past Grenada. But when the first British landed on Grand Anse in 1609, the Caribs were not in a welcoming mood: only eight of the original two hundred settlers survived.

By 1651 the French established a foothold just south of the St. George's harbour and pushed the Caribs northward with guns and swords. Rather than surrender, most of the surviving Caribs jumped to their deaths off Caribs' Leap in Sauteurs.

The remaining Caribs might have witnessed the first shipment of anguished African in shackles, and the smoking booms of naval canons as the French and British battled each other for the island's sugar wealth.

St. George's, the capital, is land-marked with monuments of those fiery centuries. The stonewalled Fort George, started by the French and completed by the British, guards the harbour entrance on the peninsula to the west. Fort Frederick watches from the highest point to the east. And on the north ridge overlooking the harbour is the sprawling Government House, the Governor’s official mansion.

It was also the official residence of Lieutenant-Governor Ninian Home, captured during a slave rebellion in 1795. The rebellion, started by Julien Fédon, a mulatto of French and African blood, and himself the owner of the Belvidere slave plantation, lasted almost a year and a half before the British prevailed.

But not before Fédon, who had signed a declaration of loyalty to Great Britain just a few years earlier, executed the Lieutenant-Governor and forty-seven British officials in the mountains overlooking his Belvidere plantation.

The executions undermined French support for the rebellion and strengthened the resolve of the fearful British residents to never surrender.

All the rebellion leaders were eventually captured and hanged. All except Fédon. He vanished, never to be seen again.

But his legacy, a mixture of fact and myth, witnessed more turmoil in the following two hundred years. Prime Minister Gairy, who once claimed that he was a descendant of Fédon, was overthrown in the 1979 revolution by Maurice Bishop, a blood descendant of one of Fédon’s enemies. Ironically, Bishop also claimed Fédon as his inspiration.

When the revolution imploded in 1983, Bishop and several key ministers surrendered to the army on Fort George, the same fort where Gairy’s forces had flown their own flag of surrender. But Bishop and his supporters were immediately executed---by troops who had sworn allegiance to him just a few years earlier.

It seemed history had repeated itself. The executions alienated foreign support, instilled fear in the population, and discredited the revolution. The catastrophic demise of the revolution opened the gates for the American invasion a week later.

Today, Grenada is at peace again. But Fédon’s mysterious disappearance continues to command an unresolved presence in the green mountains overlooking Belvidere.

Blood of Belvideretakes readers on an unforgettable journey deep into the mystique that hides behind Grenada's beauty.

What readers are saying:“This novel was such a page-turner that I finished it in one day!” Sade, Texas

"A taut tension-filled tale that holds the reader's interest in a vice-like grip from beginning to surprising end. His grasp of the history of Grenada from the period of Fédon’s Rebellion to the American-led invasion is so firm that only people acquainted with the history of Grenada are able to discern fact from fiction" Curtis Jacobs, History Professor, University of the West Indies

"Blood of Belvidere is a must read!"General Bob Marquette, U.S. Air Force (Ret.)“I just read Dunbar Campbell's novel Blood of Belvidere, in one sitting. I enjoyed it thoroughly. Mr. Campbell, the author, succeeded in weaving a web of thrilling romanticism while blending the narrative seamlessly with folklore and island legend that spanned generations of family intrigue.” Roger Byer, Grenada

"All Grenadians should read this, it’s a great story about beautiful Grenada. I could not put it down.” Kai, Florida

"Since my teenage years I have read many books about Grenadian and West Indian history to better understand the events that resulted in the US invasion of Grenada a year before my birth in 1983. All I needed to do was read Blood of Belvidere." V. Howard, England